


The Ballad of Stephanie Rogers and Natasha Stark

by Quaxo



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, F/F, Period-Typical Sexism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-26
Updated: 2013-12-26
Packaged: 2018-01-06 05:33:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1103001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quaxo/pseuds/Quaxo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was written right after Iron Man 2, but alternate universe so still canon?  This was for the schmoop_bingo card.  Captain America wasn't out yet so expect to run into some comics characters, but only in passing.</p><p>First Anniversary:  It's the first anniversary of Stephanie's recovery from the ice.  The Museum of New York City holds an exhibit and a party in her honor.</p><p>Shower Together:  There was no need for Stephanie to use the communal showers attached to the gym.</p><p>Deja Vu:  Its times like these that Stephanie heartily agrees with Natasha's distaste for magic.</p><p>Bubble Bath:  She hears Natasha's voice echo down the hall and cringes. </p><p>Spooning:  Stephanie is often the first one awake in the mornings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Anniversary

The first anniversary of her recovery from the ice the Museum of New York City hosts a special exhibit all about the Invaders and other super heroes of the 1940s. They’d wanted to make the show about her and she was so glad that she had finally gotten them to see sense on that matter. 

It was odd to see things from her friends’ lives – her life – on display like they were priceless historical artifacts. To see the patina that had grown on her shield, the enamel turning the once vibrant white into a muted cream. Her old shield, she corrects herself – she hasn’t used it since they’d perfected the vibranium alloy of the one she currently carries. Her spare uniform has moth holes that have been delicately repaired in minuscule stitches that are almost invisible – would have been invisible to her if she hadn’t sat at her mother’s knee as her mother did the sewing for their neighbors for pennies and therefore knew what to look for...

The shield and the uniform are both in her storage locker back in Washington her memory insists – because that’s where she left them six weeks ago – six weeks and sixty years ago she reminds herself.

She tugs at the skirt of her dress, catching her reflection in the glass case enclosing a Spirit of ‘76’s tricorn hat. The icy pale blue of the dress stands out in the room full of dark cocktail dresses. She may not be showing as much cleavage as some of the women in the room – only a narrow slit down center of the top, stretching from collarbone to mid-chest – but the way the bias cut of the silk clings to her body more than makes up for it. She looks…elegant, lady-like even. The short dolman sleeves even manage to slim her broad shoulders into a more feminine shape. The dress was ‘charmingly vintage’ according to Jan, whose fashion sense Stephanie had deferred to for this event. Perhaps that was why she felt so comfortable with it… a dress from another time for a person from another time. She feels so out of step with this new world that she’s been released into – she should be locked up in here in her vintage dress with all of the remnants of her life – her world –

A warm hand closes around her wrist – firmly but gently, a friend not foe – and she looks to her right to see Natasha standing beside her.

She nods to whatever Natasha is saying, allowing the other woman to lead her to another section of the museum without complaint. She takes the opportunity to study the woman. If Stephanie belongs in this museum then Natasha is the emblem of the new world she has found herself in.

Natasha has the shortest hair she’s ever seen on a woman – barely a half inch long along the back and sides. The only thing that saves it from being entirely masculine is the slightly longer length along the crown, her bangs curling gently and brushing her eyebrows.

Natasha’s wearing a tuxedo jacket and slacks – Stephanie’s never seen her in a dress or a skirt – and the black satin crepe is tailored expertly along her broad square shoulders. She’s barely got any make up on – only eyeliner, mascara and some pale lipstick – she’s not even wearing any powder. There’s a flush on Natasha’s cheeks, but the culprit is the glass of whiskey clutched in Natasha’s other hand.

The whiskey is also probably responsible for the starry look in Natasha’s eyes too.

It takes a near miss with a tray of champagne to bring her attention back to reality. The new room is full of photos – of her, Bucky, Madeline, Whizzer – blown up to almost life size proportions. The war bonds and recruitment posters they’d all posed for. Beside each is a white square with black print that carefully details the title, the artist, the year, the names of the people in the images, a short history of the where and why of the piece, and the name of the owner. Just like any museum she might go to.

Natasha tugs her in front of the WAC recruitment poster she and Madeline had posed for before they went over to Europe with the new Invaders. Madeline and she couldn’t have dressed more patriotic if they tried. Madeline, dressed in crimson tunic and tights with the stars-and-stripes shield on her chest, is zipping across the background, her blue cape flapping behind her, her arm raised up in a salute as she beams at the viewer. Stephanie is in the foreground, dressed in her very first uniform – the one with the uncomfortable blue and white wool shirt under the red and white striped leather corset and men’s blue trousers held up by her gun holsters. A steel pot helmet with small wings riveted to either side was smashed down over her longer hair, a thin domino her only disguise. She’s beaming, one hand on her hip and the other lifting her shield high above her head.

“Are You A Girl With A Star-Spangled Heart?” The top banner screams, joined by the bottom slogan of “Lady Liberty and Captain America Remind You: You Don’t Have To Be A Superhero To Join WAC.”

They’d been so young then – Madeline had just joined the Invaders and Stephanie hadn’t even worked up the guts to insist on changes to her impractical costume (hot, itchy, couldn’t breathe in that stupid corset, the mask was completely useless, the helmet didn’t fit and didn’t stay on her head half the time… really, she could’ve gone on forever).

She wonders what happened to Madeline – she should look her up one of these days… even if it’d probably be in an encyclopedia.

“I had that poster in my bedroom,” Natasha says wistfully, then takes a deep sip of her whiskey. “Dad always used to point to it and say, ‘Those are real women, Tasha’ – especially when I got in trouble,” Natasha chuckles and winks at her and Stephanie feels herself relaxing for the first time tonight.

She can almost believe that she’s just like anyone else here – a guest staring at relics from a time long since passed. She walks the around the room alone, Natasha having been absorbed into a discussion with a group of men in military dress uniform. She’d had more than her fill of discussions with four-star generals before she’d been caught in the ice – it was one of the few parts of her old life she was not nostalgic over. She leaves Natasha to them.

A few people recognize her and she smiles and lets them take photos with her with their tiny cell phone cameras. They may be more convenient than the old Speed Graphics, but the images just aren’t the same trapped on a tiny screen.

After she gets a few hors d’oeuvres that don’t involve fish eggs or goose liver and a non-alcoholic drink she turns her attention back to the images on the wall. In blacks and whites, and age-dulled colors she can believe that these events happened long ago. The images hung on a wall provide a distance that her physical possessions – even as aged and tattered as they were – couldn’t.

Then she sees a small picture –roughly sixteen by eleven inches – hung in the corner. It’s a painting and at first inattentive glance she’d dismissed it as another war bond poster – Except it’s not. It’s a painting of her – and it’s certainly not one she sat for.

She thinks the artist must have been 'inspired' by the war bond poster (they never get her nose right, always making it too pointed -- it may not be perfect, her snub nose, but its hers) – and that is where the resemblance ends. Silver stars cover the nipples of her bare breasts, an American flag slipping down her hips. Her helmet is gone; her hair styled in long corn-colored loose curls that go all the way down to her shoulders, pinned back by a winged clipped on each side of her head. She holds the shield loosely at her side. He posture open, inviting. She – the picture that is – gazes lustfully at the viewer with a come hither expression that makes her – the real her that is – blush.

It’s not her – but its close enough to make the hair prickle on her arms.

She knew that the boys… well she knew boys liked pictures like this. They were the sort of thing you just had to tolerate – boys were boys after all and there was no changing them after all these centuries. Besides, they deserved a bit of comfort considering they were risking their lives.

She hadn’t thought much of the women who had posed for nudey pictures – being a nude artist’s model was one thing, you were assisting in the creation of something greater than yourself – posing for nude portraits with the sole purpose of providing to some men’s baser urges was about money or vanity and only a few steps above prostitution in her book.

Had this picture been published? Must have been, because why else would it be here? Had they distributed it amongst the men or had it stayed stateside? How could they have looked up to her as a leader – as a symbol of their country’s values – when they thought they’d seen her naked – when they thought that she was the kind of girl that would pose for nude pictures? What had they thought of her?

She pulls the picture in the frame to her -- even though she knows she musn't touch pictures in a museum -- hoping the painting won't be her any more but some other girl who's long since dead.

An even more mortifying thought occurs to her: had Bucky seen this picture in one of the men’s bunks?

A hand clasps her upper arm causing her to jerk in shock -- and split the picture straight down the middle, frame, glass, and picture. 

She’s not sorry she destroyed the picture – but it wasn’t hers, which means she’s going to have to apologize to someone for it, and probably have to pay them the cost of replacing it – or worse still the cost of restoring it. She sets it carefully on the floor, not wanting to make more of a ruckus than she probably already has, but what she really wants to do is put it in the rubbish bin.

“C’mon, Steph – duty calls,” Natasha says, tugging on her arm again. Natasha waves her own Avenger’s communicator in front of Stephanie’s nose.

Natasha leads her through the hallways and gallery like she owns the place, leading her through a series of side doors and hidden stairwells that for once she doesn’t take much note of them, her own thoughts preoccupied with how exactly she was going to apologize for destroying a piece of “art” that probably cost a lot more money than she wanted to think if it was good enough to be featured in this museum. She hoped the stipend she received from the Avengers would be enough to cover it –

They surface on the street level in an isolated side entrance where Happy and the limo are awaiting them. Does Happy have access to the Avenger’s radio channel – how did he know to come find them here? Natasha must have called him on her cell phone and told him where to pick them up.

It isn’t until they’re both in the back seat of the car, Natasha slamming the door shut behind herself that Stephanie realizes that her own communicator, stowed in the silk clutch she borrowed from Jan, has been silent this whole time.

“There isn’t any emergency, is there,” Stephanie asks after she fights through the lump of embarrassment thick in her throat. She’d been creating a scene – Natasha must have wanted her out of there before she could do anything more than damage a merely ‘valuable’ painting… who knew what she’d do something that was actually priceless.

Natasha’s knuckles pause mid-rap on the window separating the two of them from Happy – and Natasha’s blue eyes evaluate her coolly for a long moment.

“You caught me,” Natasha smirks, “That party was getting awfully boring – and it’s not like anyone there knew any better.”

“The painting –”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Stephanie stays silent for a moment, her gut squirming in rebellion as the car moves off into the night.

“I ruined that painting. I should to talk with the owner,” Stephanie manages to grit out after a moment.

“That would be rather difficult – considering he’s dead – or maybe not,” Natasha’s lips quirk. “The painting was my father’s so I suppose it’s mine now.”

“Oh.”

The irrational feeling of betrayal strikes Stephanie like a blow to the chest. Why would Natasha put that picture in the show? Didn’t she realize how embarrassing that painting was to her – how degrading it was to realize that she’d being walking around thinking of herself as a symbol of American virtues and everyone else had seen her some cheap floozy who posed naked–

Natasha probably doesn’t even realize—can’t even understand – how humiliating that picture is to Stephanie. Natasha lives in a world where people become famous for filming their sexual activities – she probably finds that picture tame in comparison.

Stephanie really does belong back in that museum.

“I’ll repay you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Natasha says, leaning over to the side of the car and opening a panel to reveal a small bar complete with miniature bottles of alcohol.

“No,” Stephanie barks, slipping into what Jan and Natasha called her ‘I’m-daggum-Captain-America’ tone unconsciously. “I need to pay for the damage I did. How much was it valued at?”

Natasha gives her a bemused look as she drops a few pieces of ice into her cut crystal glass.

“That’s nice of you, Steph, but don’t worry about it.”

Stephanie watches as Natasha pours amber liquid from one of the tiny bottles into her glass, and something about Natasha’s casual attitude is smashing all of her buttons.

“I can pay for it, just tell me how much,” Stephanie insists, struggling to keep her voice even.

“I know you can pay for it, I write your checks,” Natasha says with a laugh that makes Stephanie grit her teeth at the arrogance.

“How. Much,” Stephanie grits out, no longer able to hide her frustration and anger.

Natasha looks surprised, blue eyes going slightly wider, her glass halfway to her lips.

“Stephanie –,” Natasha lets out an exasperated sigh and sets the drink down on the floor of car. “…Fine. One dollar,” Natasha holds out her hand, palm up.

“I know it was worth more than that,” Stephanie snaps.

“I don’t know how much it was worth – Pepper can get you the information tomorrow if you really want to know. It’s probably worth a dollar now though – and I’m probably overcharging.” 

Natasha’s voice has gotten patronizing now – it’s obvious that she thinks Stephanie’s overreacting. Maybe she is, but she can’t help how she feels about this. She grabs her clutch and pulls a dollar bill out, crumpling it and tossing it at Natasha. Natasha gives her a bewildered look as the money bounces off her chest and falls into her lap.

“I’m never going to fit in to this society. There’s no sense of common decency anymore. You have no idea what it feels like to find out that people who were supposed to respect you see you as some cheap tart who poses naked. Heck, you people applaud that sort of thing nowadays. I’ll never understand it.”

It isn’t until she stops talking that she realizes that she’s been shouting. How humiliating to lose control like that. She turns to look out the window, her arms wrapping around her chest as she tries to beat back the burning sensation in her eyes.

They spend the rest of the ride back to the mansion in awkward silence.

***///***///***

After a good night’s sleep, a long jog through Central Park and a hearty breakfast has Stephanie in a much better mood than she was last night. She was embarrassed at how poorly she’d acted – even if she wasn’t in the wrong she still could have behaved better.

Just as Stephanie was a product of her own time, Natasha was a product of hers. There was no way for Natasha to have predicted that Stephanie would have been offended by the picture. Besides, it had been her father’s painting according to Natasha. It wasn’t as if Natasha had gone out and hunted down the image herself. She hadn't deliberately meant to humiliate her like that -- probably hadn't even known that Stephanie hadn't posed for it. 

She’s deliberating in her room the best way to apologize to Natasha – a letter would be easy but cowardly – but she’s not sure if she should interrupt Natasha at work to go apologize in person. It might be days before Natasha came back by the mansion though – especially if she were upset by Stephanie’s actions – when a knock on the door pulls her from her thoughts.

She opens the door and is surprised to see Natasha standing there, a brown wrapped package under her arm. Natasha’s expression is guarded and slightly cold and Stephanie feels a pang of guilt in her gut because it’s her fault Natasha is looking at her like that.

“Since you paid for it, I thought I’d bring you over the painting.”

Stephanie’s stomach twists at the thought of actually owning the troublesome picture herself – but it was better than someone else owning it. She takes it gingerly from Natasha’s hands.

“…well, thank you.”

She stares at the painting warily, trying to decide what to do with it – burning it would be petty but satisfying. She steps away from the door, opening up her closet and setting the painting in the back behind her trunk. She can decide later.

“It wasn’t published, you know,” Natasha says. Stephanie turns back to look at her friend, relieved to see Natasha leaning against the door frame, the tension draining slowly from her figure. “I had Pepper research it this morning. The National Archives apparently has a telegraph from Colonel Hobby to the Office of War Information saying that she wasn’t going to have ‘another one of my girls, especially one as special as Miss Rogers, portrayed as a common harlot’. She pulled some strings and got the publication squashed. My father bought it from the artist in the 60s,” Natasha gives her a watery smile. “So no worries, I suppose.”

A wave of relief crashes over Stephanie – her world is righted on its axis again – she is who she thought she was after all.

“Thank you,” Stephanie says and this time she really means it. “I was distressed—”

“It get it. You were upset – it would be upsetting, having something like that published without your knowledge,” Natasha interrupts her, her face softening. “I know what that's like…”

“You’ve been – you’ve been a true friend to me since the day you found me." Natasha shrugs her shoulders, looking away uncomfortably like she always does when you're complementing her about anything but her looks and what she can build. "I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I should have known you wouldn't -- wouldn't hurt me like that, not on purpose. I'm sorry."

"I should've known taken a closer look at what we were sending over there -- should've guessed that'd be a picture you'd want for yourself even if you had posed for it," Natasha chews her lip, briefly meeting her eyes, before glancing about the room. "I'm the one who should be sorry."

Stephanie almost laughs -- at this rate they'll be apologizing to each other for hours about everything they 'should have' done. "How about we agree we're both sorry and we'll never talk about it again--" She sticks out her hand, "Friends?"

Stephanie can't explain the spark of warmth that Natasha's crooked smile makes in her chest as Natasha clasps hands with her.

"Friends."


	2. Shower Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stephanie has a perfectly fine shower upstairs in her room, so there was really no need to use the showers in the communal gym.

There was no need to use the women’s communal shower attached to the gym. She had a perfectly fine shower upstairs in her private quarters that she could be using. A shower that had curtains and wasn't exposed to everyone else in the room. Except that the bathroom was upstairs and she’d have to walk through the recreation room all sweaty from her work out in her exercise clothes and –

\-- and its pretty hard to be coy about seeing someone naked when you've just spent the last hour wrestling with them on the mats -- clothes on of course.

“Do you have any plans for tonight,” Natasha asks, blinking under the spray of the water as she shampoos her own hair. The lather forms quickly in the dark brown bristles of Natasha’s hair, causing it to stick up like an agitated porcupine.

“Not really,” She replies, hiding a smirk as Natasha carefully sculpts her hair with the lather into what she’s learned is called a ‘Mohawk’.

“Jan and I were thinking about going out dancing tonight – just a girl’s night out. You should come.”

“I don’t know if I’d call what you two do ‘dancing’…”

Natasha makes a silly face at her in response – mouth pulling down in an exaggerated grimace, eyes rolling dramatically. This is a good natured argument that goes all the way back to the first time that Natasha and Jan took her dancing – to a large dark room where the walls shook from the volume of the music (if you could call it music) and people were crammed in together shoulder to shoulder on the dance floor looking like they were having synchronized full body spasms.

Natasha and Jan both insisted it was dancing – but dancing was something you did with a partner and had steps and flourishes and sometimes she was almost convinced they were pulling her leg about the whole thing.

“Well, I’m sure we can find a swing club for you. The guys will probably octogenarians -- but at least they'll be someone there your age!”

“Hah hah.”

Natasha lets out an amused noise as she reaches out for the soap, squirting some of it on a sponge and bending over to wash her legs. The movements aren’t meant to be sexual – Natasha’s not that kind of girl – she thinks. Sex is so confusing in this time – things are a lot more blatant nowadays (flesh is on display everywhere, gay people hold hands in public and have television shows...) , yet some of the stigmas remain and she’s just not sure –

She’s merely admiring the lean lines of Natasha’s body with an artist’s eye she rationalizes – although maybe it’s the concern of a friend as her eyes linger on the dark angular bruise along the top of Natasha’s right thigh – probably a result of the latest experiment with her suit. She should be aware that Natasha is injured, especially since Natasha’s notorious inability to admit any weakness.

Her eyes follow the soap bubbles as Natasha continues her ablutions, Stephanie’s own washcloth mirroring the path of Natasha’s sponge subconsciously. The soft scrape of terry cloth on her right breast, avoiding an arc reactor that isn’t there, is almost foreign enough that she can pretend that it’s –

She reaches out and adjusts the temperature of the shower, wincing at the sudden blast of freezing water as she quickly finishes washing herself, keeping her eyes to herself. She’d been playing with fire there for a moment – what she has now is worth far more than a far flung fantasy.

“So are you coming,” Natasha asks, startling her from her thoughts.

Natasha is looking at her, towel wrapped around her chest, shower finished, smiling at her and completely unaware of Stephanie’s thoughts – thank god.

“Sure,” She manages to get out around the tight wad in her throat.

Then Natasha steps closer to her and frowns. Stephanie hasn’t been this terrified since she was fighting the Nazis – and this is just silly because there’s no way that Natasha can know what she’s thinking –

“I’m going to have someone look at the water heater – there’s no way that you should be out of hot water yet.”

Stephanie knees go weak the moment Natasha leaves.

That was a close call.


	3. Deja Vu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's times like these that Stephanie heartily agrees with Nastasha's distaste for magic.

She has a strange moment of déjà vu – it’s been six or sixty-six years depending on who she asks since she’s seen this face – and it hasn’t changed a bit. Same old sharp cheekbones, same sunken eyes with dark circles, same narrow shoulders…

Stephanie sighs, turning from the mirror and dropping down onto her bed with a soft sigh. It is times like these that she heartily agrees with Natasha’s distaste for magic. Fortunately she’d been on the periphery of Doom’s “Age Reducer Ray”. A full blast of the thing would’ve resulted in her being turned into an embryo within the blink of an eye. Even better news was that the Super Soldier Serum seemed to be reversing the effects automatically – at least according to Hank– correcting the flaws in her genetic make-up all over again.

She’d just have to be patient, Hank had said, until her body caught back up with time.

That was easy for him to say – he wasn’t stuck in the too skinny, pale, fragile weak body of his nineteen year old self. God she looked terrible – her joints and clavicles seem to almost poke through her pasty-white skin. She looked like she was ill – which she had been before the serum. Her body ached – Hank said that it probably meant that the serum was working. At least she didn’t feel as tired as she remembered being back then – another small mercy she supposed.

The only good thing to come out of this whole mess was that her hair now brushed her shoulders, just like she had worn it when she’d been nineteen for real (Hank had been puzzled by that, but there really was no applying logic to magic). She’d been trying to grow it out off and on for years – but she’s always had to cut it all off again whenever it got scorched, cut and in one very memorable incident dunked in a vat of bubblegum. She’d finally given up – long hair wasn’t practical under the cowl anyway.

She glances back at the mirror, one hand coming up absently to play with a strand of her hair. The long flaxen waves once had been the only thing about her appearance that she’d taken any pride in. She’d trade it back in an instant to be her old self again – her old-new self anyway. The girl in the mirror is someone she doesn’t know any more.

She really hates magic right about now.

A knock on the door startles her – Natasha is standing in the doorway, holding a pizza box up.

“Love the new look,” Natasha says cheekily, grinning brightly. “Hungry?”

“I’m not hungry,” Stephanie replies sourly, not liking the way Natasha’s eyes are dancing with amusement at her plight. 

If their positions had been reversed – well they’d just see how much Natasha liked being a spotty teenager all over again – she probably wouldn’t have found it so funny then. In fact, if it hadn’t been for that week long board and shareholder meeting that Natasha had to attend (and considering Natasha hadn’t even tried to escape it, it had to have been an important meeting) she probably would’ve been the one in front of Doom’s ray. Natasha had a nasty habit of trying to take bullets for her – something Stephanie should really talk to her about.

“Ray’s can make anything better –” Natasha smirks, cracking open the lid of the pizza box and giving Stephanie a glimpse of bubbling cheese. She can smell the pizza from across the room and she’d be lying if she said that she wasn’t starting to feel a bit peckish.

Natasha strides in confidently and drops down onto the bed beside Stephanie, setting the pizza carelessly on the corner of the bed. Natasha is so very pretty; she’d be a looker even back in Stephanie’s time. Even though it’s silly, Stephanie’s irrationally certain that Natasha never had an awkward moment in puberty. She probably just woke up one morning a full grown woman.

“C’mon, it could’ve been worse.”

“How could it be worse?”

“Could’ve been turned into an embryo and Jan could’ve had to rebirth you,” Natasha suggests.

“That’s—” Stephanie’s nose scrunches – she can’t even picture the scene in her head it’s so disgusting. “—gross. Why would you even think of—”

“Told you it could be worse and we need to watch Alien some time, its an important part of your cultural education,” Natasha's smile is wicked as she leans across the mattress to open the pizza box again and pull free a gooey slice. Natasha lets out a soft groan as she takes that first bite, a string of mozzarella hanging from her bottom lip.

Okay, now Stephanie’s kind of hungry.

Wordlessly, Natasha passes over the box and between the two of them they begin to quickly devour the large all-meat combo. Natasha asks about the fight and Stephanie gives her a blow by blow recap of the fight. Jan had been fierce with her stingers; apparently Hank had given them an upgrade. Thor had been impressive as usual – he’d been mighty frustrated when a Doombot had become impaled on the handle of Mjolnir and proved very difficult to remove though. 

They’re down to the last slice when Natasha flops back on the bed, stretching her arms above her head with content sigh.

“I thought you had that meeting…,” Stephanie asks, propping herself up with one arm.

“Pepper can handle the rest of it,” Natasha shrugs, one corner of her lips quirking up. “I’ve done all the hard work – they just needed lots of ass kissing and blow jobs to make them see sense -- situation normal all fucked up. ”

Stephanie rolls her eyes – Natasha can be so crass sometimes. She does understand the sentiment though – she remembers long hours of shaking hands with three and four stars generals, politicians and members of the press corps. Those meetings had been important – had let those with all the power in the government get to know her – allowed her to convince them to continue to support the Invaders. It’d been more difficult than she imagined – her whole body itching to do something that felt useful instead of standing in a room talking – and not even really talking because you had that script in your head of all the talking points you needed to cover without sounding like you had that script of talking points in your head. 

She understood quite well why Natasha tried to find any excuse to get out of those meetings.

“So, when did Hank think you’d be back to your old self again,” Natasha asks, looking at Stephanie through sleepy half-lidded eyes.

“Few hours – maybe a day at the most,” Stephanie holds back a yawn herself, sliding down to lay across from Natasha.

“Mmmm…” Natasha’s eyes drift shut for a moment, and Stephanie feels a sweet-sour burn at the idea of Natasha sleeping in her bed. “So, what’s it like being a teenager again?”

“It stinks,” Stephanie sighs. “Pretty much like the first time through.”

“C’mon, didn’t you have sleepovers, pillow fights, makeovers, and gush about that cutie Rudolph Valentino?”

“Valentino was before even my time,” Stephanie snorts, her lips curling in amusement. “I didn’t spend a lot of time with the other girls…”

No one had a lot of money in her neighborhood, but Stephanie and her mother had been poorer than most. She hadn’t been invited to many of those parties that Natasha talked about. When she had, often times she’d been too sick to go. Besides, some of those girls had only invited her because their mothers had insisted that their daughters invite everyone in the class, and Stephanie's pride then couldn't abide that. Didn't mean it hadn't hurt to see the relief on those girls' faces when she declined their invitations.

Natasha’s eyes snap open, lips pouting.

“That simply won’t do,” Natasha mutters, pushing herself off the bed with a soft groan. Stephanie rolls onto her side, watching as Natasha strides over to Stephanie’s vanity, and then starts digging through the drawers for a moment before pulling free Stephanie’s silver-handled brush.

The brush had been one of the few things that Stephanie had inherited from her mother – and her mother from Stephanie’s grandmother. It was one of the few family heirlooms that had made it across the ocean, and miraculously hadn’t been pawned for cash by either of her parents before it had made its way to Stephanie. She hardly ever uses it, she’s so afraid of damaging it.

“C’mon, sit up,” Natasha urges, standing at the foot of the bed.

The bed is almost too comfortable – and gosh her stomach is full – but she rolls herself up with a groan, curious to what Natasha is planning to do.

She feels Natasha move to sit behind her, Natasha’s thighs resting on the outside of Stephanie’s. She can feel Natasha’s warmth through her clothing. Her scalp tingles as she feels the long gentle stroke of the brush down the length of her hair. Muscles that had been tensed since her accident begin to relax under Natasha’s smooth ministrations.

“I never got invited to slumber parties either,” Natasha says softly as she sets the brush aside for a moment. Stephanie leans back as she feels Natasha running her fingers through Stephanie’s hair. “Lots of frat parties though. I always got on better with the boys.”

Stephanie isn’t sure how long she and Natasha sit there – Stephanie’s pretty sure that at some point Natasha is supposed to style her hair, but that never happens. Natasha seems content to brush Stephanie’s hair and it feels too good for Stephanie to say anything.

At some point the serum begins the final phase of re-development – at least Stephanie hopes that’s what the increasing aching pain means. She forces the pain away as best she’s able and focuses on the rhythm of the brush in her hair, the soft push then long pull as Natasha runs it slowly through her hair.

A soft disappointed noise involuntarily escapes from Stephanie’s lips when Natasha sets the brush aside again.

“Maybe you want to lay down,” Natasha whispers, hands coming down to rest on Stephanie’s shoulders, squeezing them gently.

Natasha can’t mean it how Stephanie wants her to mean it – Stephanie’s not even sure how she wants Natasha to mean it. She slides down the bed though, resting her head in Natasha’s lap.

“Losing then regrowing super-enhanced muscles in a few hours can’t be comfortable.”

It’s not comfortable, Stephanie agrees, but it’s much easier with someone else there.


	4. Bubble Bath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stephanie hears Natasha's voice echo down the hall and cringes.

“Stephanie?”

She hears Natasha’s voice echo down the hall and cringes. Clutching her fuzzy blue bathrobe closed, she turns to face the other woman sheepishly. Really, Natasha should’ve been asleep by now – Stephanie had been sort of counting on that. The woman had flown in from a business meeting Tokyo, one which she’d flown out for only twenty-four hours earlier after a battle with the Wrecking Crew. Natasha should be in bed, asleep, not wandering the halls in too tight camisole and a pair of low slung burgundy silk sleep pants.

Natasha is staring at her and Stephanie’s cheeks feel like they’re on fire and she curses her fair skin. She probably looks like a tomato right now – Natasha’s never going to let her live this down if she knew –

“I really need to have a talk with environmental services—”

“No! Not necessary – the water’s fine—honestly, I just need –”

“You’ve still got soap in your hair!”

“I just,” Gosh she wishes it was Jarvis she’d run into instead Natasha. She’d have preferred anyone but Natasha really. Well… perhaps not Red Skull, because running into him in your bathrobe was terrible – but in this moment Natasha was a very close second. “I just need to get a mop and bucket—”

One of Natasha’s eyebrows shoots up to her hairline, a grin plucking at the corner of her lips – and Stephanie knows that it’s now too late to come out of this gracefully.

“I think I need to see this,” Natasha purrs, brushing past Stephanie to lead the way back to Stephanie’s quarters.

Really, Stephanie can’t even be angry that Natasha’s just barging into her room uninvited – Natasha owns the place after all. She follows the shorter woman back to her own private bathroom – preparing herself for the inevitable reaction. She probably won’t be angry, but Stephanie’s quite certain that –

Natasha bursts out laughing, right on cue. Stephanie is distracted by the long line of Natasha’s throat as she chortles at Stephanie’s situation.

“…I just wanted to make a few more bubbles for my bath,” Stephanie mutters gloomily, glaring at the mountain of suds piled three feet out of the tub and spilling out and covering half the floor. She’d only turned on the jets of the tub for a few minutes – she hadn’t expected the bubble bath solution to become a rapidly rising tide of foam. She’d only just managed to get to the knob turn off the jets without cracking her head open on the soapy tiles before the bubbles could get into the bedroom. 

“I don’t know what’s funnier,” Natasha gasps, shooting Stephanie a broad grin. “…the bubbles or the idea of Captain America, the woman who socked Hitler, enjoying a leisurely bubble bath.” Natasha cackles, “It’s the bubble bath, definitely.”

“Are you going to laugh at me or are you going to tell me where to find the mop?”

“Alright, let’s clean this up…,” Natasha snickers, kneeling down on the bathroom floor and scraping up an armful of bubbles and pushing them back to the top of the bubble pile.

Cleaning up the mess is not as easy it seems – it’s hard to get a good grasp on a pile of bubbles, the floor is slippery with all the soap and water, and forcing the bubbles to stay in the tub was about as easy as forcing sand to stay in one place. They manage though, eventually to return the bathroom to a relatively normal appearance. Natasha assures her that nothing would’ve damaged the workings of the tub, so there was one fear put to rest.

They’re both soaked by the time they manage to get all the bubbles in the general vicinity of the tub. Stephanie’s thin bathrobe sticks awkwardly to her body in all the wrong ways, but Natasha’s pants cling to her leanly muscular thighs.

“I think that’s the last of it,” Natasha sighs, running her forearm across her brow, leaving a trail of bubbles along her hairline. Her face is flushed bright pink – probably from the remaining heat of the room. She’s looking up at Stephanie bright-eyed despite the late hour, a small grin tugging at her lips.

The urge to kiss her in that moment makes Stephanie’s bones ache and even though she knows it’s foolish – dangerous even to contemplate doing such a thing because of what it will likely do to their friendship. Her heart starts to race as she steps in towards Natasha, a small part of her brain still screaming in protest to her actions as she leans in –

\-- And promptly slips on the still damp tiles and falls with a painful ‘thud’ onto her knees. She can feel her cheeks flushing again and really, she doesn’t even believe in fate, but maybe she should take this as a sign to just forget all this business in the first place. She should be grateful for what she has with Natasha. Getting greedy would only result in pain – literally, it seemed.

She accepts Natasha’s outstretched hand and pulls herself up – and accepts that all that she and Natasha can ever be is –

Her thoughts are abruptly derailed as Natasha’s lips gently brush against hers. She’s too surprised to even do anything encouraging in response – like return the kiss, wrap her arms around her and pull her into a dip, ask if she was sure she knew what she was doing –

Natasha pulls away slightly, resting the palm of her hand delicately on Stephanie’s breast bone. Natasha’s eyes are studying her carefully through the veils of her eyelashes and Stephanie can feel her heart stutter painfully in anticipation as those perfect perfect coral red lips part –

“I’m guessing that was what you were going for,” Natasha asks wryly, eyes crinkling.

Stephanie wants to respond – can feel all the words she’s been longing to say rush to the back of her throat and stick there as they all try to get out at the same time. It’s all so frustrating – this is the moment she’s been waiting for since she met Natasha or even before the ice and all she can do is stand here like a dummy staring at the woman of her dreams.

“You know what—”

Stephanie knows that the next words out of Natasha’s mouth are going to be ‘let’s just forget this ever happened’ and Natasha will think it's her fault instead of Stephanie's.. She hates that her own hesitation has caused Natasha to doubt this wonderful moment – she hates that her voice still won’t cooperate with her to say all the things she’s thinking –

She leans forward and kisses Natasha, pulling the shorter woman in close to her as her lips and tongue carefully explore Natasha’s mouth, wanting to memorize every inch of it. She feels euphoric as all the tension that had been coiled within her, desperately holding down this secret from Natasha, is finally unfurled.

“Well, who says bath time isn’t fun,” Natasha hoarsely quips when they finally break for air.

Stephanie rolls her eyes and kisses her again. Words are entirely overrated.


	5. Spooning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stephanie is often the first one awake in the morning.

Stephanie is often the first one awake in the mornings – the only way Natasha is up before her is if she doesn’t sleep at all – which happens more often than Stephanie would like.

So mornings like this – ones where the night sky is beginning to fade at the edges, where Natasha is in bed and neither of them have anywhere to be this morning – are rare enough to be something of a treat.

She has to be quiet. Natasha wakes so easily – although one wouldn’t believe it considering the thick haze that Natasha is in before she’s had her first cup of coffee. There is that first moment though, when Stephanie can see and feel Natasha’s body go into high alert, ascertaining her location and status – it’s something she recognizes from herself and her fellow soldiers in the midst of battle where safety is uncertain from one moment to the next. Stephanie thinks it must be a remnant of Natasha’s time in captivity.

Maybe someday Natasha will trust her enough to tell her more about her kidnapping than just the irreverent footnote (“I was kidnapped by the Ten Rings in a third world country and all I got was this lousy body mod and a metal suit.”). It wasn’t as if that Stephanie doesn’t have some secrets of her own, but that’s beside the point.

She studies the lean line of Natasha’s back – Natasha always seems to wind up curled on her side facing the door. Maybe it’s just more comfortable for her that way. Stephanie inches her body slowly across the mattress towards Natasha (the bed seemed a lot smaller last night). Her body mimics Natasha’s position as she moves that last inch – until she is just barely touching Natasha’s skin. She holds perfectly still for several eternal seconds watching Natasha carefully to see if she’ll wakes up. When Natasha doesn’t stir, Stephanie slowly lets out the breath she’s been holding.

Next comes the hardest part as Stephanie brings her arm carefully up and around Natasha’s waist. She positions it carefully over Natasha’s torso – she has to lower the limb slowly that Natasha won’t wake. She’s almost made it this time when a twitch – if it was her or Natasha, Stephanie can’t say – causes their skin to brush and then the game is over.

Stephanie curses as blue a streak as she’s able to mentally as she feels Natasha’s body go stiff beside her, hears Natasha inhale sharply in anticipation of something that isn’t there.

“Good morning,” Stephanie whispers and feels Natasha’s body start to relax once again.

“…g’mornin’,” Natasha mumbles through a yawn, twisting over to face Stephanie with sleepy smile.

“I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“S’okay, should be gettin’ up anyway…,” Natasha yawns again, her smile turning mischievous as her arms come up to wrap around Stephanie’s neck.

Natasha presses wet kisses to Stephanie’s collar bone, her lips dragging against Stephanie’s skin.

“’Sides… means we got time for this,” Natasha purrs, looking up at Stephanie through her thick eyelashes. One of Natasha’s fingers lightly retraces the path of her lips on Stephanie’s body.

Natasha kisses her, her tongue nimbly parting Stephanie’s lips. Stephanie moans, opening her mouth slightly, teasing Natasha’s tongue with the tip of her own and feeling Natasha shiver in response. It would be so easy to ride the waves of Natasha’s body, to let this evolve into an undoubtedly satisfying romp but—

She presses her palm against Natasha’s shoulder, the other woman softly protesting as their bodies separate.

“What’s the matter,” Natasha whispers, her voice uncharacteristically apprehensive. The pupils of Natasha’s bright eyes are rapidly constricting, her expression becoming more alert. It was always a little bit surprising to be reminded that behind the confident facades of ‘Iron Man’ and ‘Natasha Stark, CEO’ there was a human being with the same insecurities as anyone. It isn’t a side that Natasha shows to just anyone, obviously, and Stephanie feels honored that Natasha trusts her enough to be vulnerable on occasion.

“Nothing,” She kisses Natasha’s forehead, her hand sliding up Natasha’s back to rub at the spot between her shoulder blades. “Just… can we,” Gosh this is embarrassing. She feels like she’s seventeen all over again with no idea of how to be intimate with another person, let alone ask for what you want. Especially when all you want is to be still for a little while with that other person. “Can we just spoon for a little bit?”

Natasha’s bewildered look melts into a wry expression, one eyebrow cocked skeptically.

“Why Miss Rogers,” Natasha snickers, turning and pressing her back to Stephanie’s chest. “I never knew you were so kinky…”

Stephanie rolls her eyes, wrapping her arm loosely around Natasha’s waist. Natasha can poke fun all she wants – but the feeling of Natasha’s skin against hers, just breathing together quietly, and the slightly salty scent of Natasha’s skin filling her nose is the perfect way to start a morning.


End file.
